"Faith an' while I'm talkin' of the one thing in the wurrld that's near our hearts—the future of Ireland—I want to prophesy—"
"Prophesy is it?"
"That's what I want to do."
"An' what's it ye'd be after prophesying?"
"This: that ten years from now, with her own Government, with her own language back again—Gaelic—an' what language in the wurrld yields greater music than the old Gaelic?—with Ireland united and Ireland's land in the care of IRISHMEN: with Ireland's people self-respectin' an' sober an' healthy an' educated: with Irishmen employed on Irish industries, exportin' them all over the wurrld: with Ireland's heart beatin' with hope an' faith in the future—do ye know what will happen?"
"Go on, Frank O'Connell. I love to listen to ye. Don't stop."
"I'll tell ye what will happen! Back will go the Irishmen in tens o' thousands from all the other counthries they were dhriven to in the days o' famine an' oppression an' coercion an' buck-shot—back they will go to their mother counthry. An' can ye see far enough into the future to realise what THAT will do? Ye can't. Well, I'll tell ye that, too. The exiled Irish, who have lived their lives abroad—takin' their wives, like as not, from the people o' the counthry they lived in an' not from their own stock—when they go back to Ireland with different outlooks, with different manners an' with different tastes, so long as they've kept the hearts o' them thrue an' loyal—just so long as they've done that—an' kept the Faith o 'their forefathers—they'll form a new NATION, an' a NATION with all the best o' the old—the great big Faith an' Hope o' the old—added to the prosperity an' education an' business-like principles an' statesmanship o' the NEW—an' it's the BLOOD o' the great OLD an' the POWER o' the great NEW that'll make the Ireland o' the future one o' the greatest NATIONS in PEACE as she has always been in WAR."
O'Connell's voice died away as he looked out across the years to come. And the light of prophecy shone in his eyes, and the eerie tone of the seer was in his voice.
It was the Ireland he had dreamed of! Ireland free, prosperous, contented—happy. Ireland speaking and writing in her national tongue! Ireland with all the depth of the poetic nature of the peasant equal to the peer! Ireland handling her own resources, developing her own national character, responsible before the WORLD and not to an alien nation for her acts—an Ireland triumphant.
Even if he would not live to see the golden harvest ripen he felt proud to be one of those who helped, in the days of stress that were gone, her people, to the benefiting of the future generations, who would have a legacy of development by PACIFIC measures, what he and his forefathers strove to accomplish by the loss of their liberty and the shedding of their blood.